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The Linux Shell

In this course we will make heavy use of the terminal (a.k.a shell). With its help, we can interact with the computer via the command line. Whenever we give you some piece of code in grey shaded boxes, 

$ whoami

you can execute the corresponding commands in the shell. Note, the '$' sign represents the prompt in your shell1). Please do not copy it, when trying to copy-past commands from the DokuWiki to the shell. Depending on your settings, this prompt can look different, but typically it includes your user name, the name of the computer you are working with, and the directory you are currently located in.

Opening a shell

Depending on your operating system, there are different ways to open a shell (or a terminal)

Linux

Linux is installed on the course computers. Just right click on the screen and a pop-up window will appear.

If you select the item Terminal a shell will open in your browser.

Figure 2: A Linux terminal

Mac OS

If you are using Mac OS, just open Applications - Utilities - Terminal Alternatively, you can install XQuartz, which provides support for the X windows system as well.

1)
This is the bit of text that is written next to your cursor